The Reason
by Ren Kayashima
Summary: Aaron Hotchner returns home after another long case and tries to find a reason for why he still does his job. Written for CCOAC's Theme Song Challenge.


Author: Ren Kayashima

Genre: Humor

Rating: K

Character: Aaron Hotchner

Disclaimer: Alas my top secret mission to steal the rights to Criminal Minds failed. At the last minute my repel line broke and I was arrested for trespassing on ABC ground. If you would like to help me with bail money…

Written for Chit Chat on Author's Corner's Round 11 Theme Song Challenge

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Aaron Hotchner entered his home tiredly. Another Unsub, another case. He looked around and sighed. The exhausted father bent over and picked up one of his son's action figures and smiled when he realized that it was a small plastic Caption America.

Hotch loosened his tie and unbuttoned his slightly wrinkled shirt. He slowly made his way to the couch and stretched out. The agent closed his eyes as he thought about his job. There had to be a reason he still looked evil in the eye after everything he had been through.

His job at the BAU caused Hayley to leave him a few years ago. He thought about quitting then, but with Gideon's departure, he couldn't knowingly leave his team without a leader. They didn't like change. He knew this of course, but then again, he preferred to have things stay the same too.

He could have left when Dave showed up, but when he saw that the senior agent wasn't adjusting to the new BAU, he decided that he needed to stay on as the teams seemingly infallible leader.

When Garcia had been shot, Strauss wanted him to step down. The politics of having a team member hide something was not something she easily tolerated, and Hotch should have known that Penelope would do something like that. He couldn't do it then because his teammate and friend needed him. It was a close call then, but he kept his head up and continued working on finding the man that had hurt his bubbly technical analyst.

The night after Reid and Prentiss had been taken hostage, Aaron Hotchner had written up a letter of resignation only to promptly burn it. It took him a while to get images of Emily's battered face out of his head, but he kept going.

Foyet. Only Hotch could understand how much power that name held. The name could easily send the normally cool and composed Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner into a blind rage. Foyet had come close to taking everything away from Hotch. The fact that Hayley was gone was enough to make the man's heart ache, but if Hotch had come through that door a minute later…

"Daddy?" Jack's small voice came from the end of the couch.

Hotch opened one eye and looked at the five year old. Jack's hair stood out at odd angles from sleep, and the little boy was in his favorite summer Spiderman pajamas. The shorts were blue and the t-shirt had the same emblem that the arachnid superhero wore proudly on his chest. But in truth, there was no greater superhero than the boy's dad. Jack walked over to his dad as the sleep deprived agent sat up.

Jack gave his father a hug, and Hotch pulled the boy into his lap. "Hey buddy, what are you doing up?"

"I heard you," Jack said quietly as he rubbed his eyes.

"You did?" Hotch asked with a small smile. "Were you sleeping?"

Jack smiled sheepishly as he clung to his father's side. "Yes," he lied.

"Are you sure you weren't waiting for me to get home?" Hotch asked as he hugged the boy close. Jack often times attempted to stay up, waiting for his daddy to come home and give him a kiss goodnight, and always to Jessica's dismay. "Is Aunt Jess asleep?"

Jessica would sleep in Hotch's room when he was away, and if he came home in the middle of the night, Aaron would sleep on the couch. Hotch stood up and made his way to Jacks room. "Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?" he asked.

Jack nodded as Hotch gently dropped the child onto the Spiderman blanket and waited for him to crawl under the covers. Hotch sat down of the bed and kicked his shoes off before settling in next to his son.

Aaron smiled a few minutes later when Jacks eyes began to drift closed. This was why he continued to do his job. No matter how bad it got, Aaron Hotchner was making the world a better place for his little boy. In truth, he didn't need another reason to stay with the BAU. Jack was the only reason that mattered.

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Author's Note: this was a pinch hit for the Chit Chat on Author's Corner Theme song Challenge. The song assigned to Hotch was _The Reason_ by Hoobastank. It's actually one of my favorites, and I enjoyed applying the title to this story. I don't really do song fics, so I wasn't about to incorporate an entire song in this. I hope you enjoyed it, because I had a lot of fun writing it. However short it may be.

_**Important News: 1.)**_ The month of August is going to be full of changes. I'm going back and working on editing and rewriting _The Death Card_ so that the material is more like what I'm posting at the moment. So I'll be keeping people posted on that as well. Check it out when you get the chance. You may like the changes you see.

2.) Ren Kayashima can now be your friend on Facebook. I know that many people are concerned about sharing info. Don't worry about that. I'm not saying people have to follow me there. I created the account to talk with several people on that also created separate accounts. I'll be posting links and a lot more updates there. If you don't want to do that, I also have a twitter and tumblr. Mostly because I get really bored.

Drop me a review because I know you want to.

Shane


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